Hochul urged to sign bill to post spending data

(The Center Square) — Gov. Kathy Hochul is being urged to put her signature on a proposal aimed at shining a brighter light on lucrative contracts that are shielded from public disclosure under state laws.

In a letter to Hochul, a coalition of groups called on her to sign a bill requiring state departments and agencies to publicly post contracts exempted from comptroller review by executive order or legislative action during public emergencies. The legislation, approved by lawmakers in the previous session, aims to improve transparency in government spending during public emergencies.

The groups, which include Reinvent Albany and Common Cause New York, said the legislation provides transparency to the state's portfolio of emergency and exempted contracts, and requires state agencies to include information regarding the justification for such contracts.

"While emergency contract authority is appropriate and necessary in some circumstances, its use should be infrequent, specifically justified, and transparent; there is no reason that details of emergency contracts should not be made public," the coalition wrote. "Exempt contracts are of particular concern, as they have been increasing in prevalence."

Under the proposed rules, state agencies will be required to post details about emergency contracts within 30 days of their authorization, including the dollar amount, name of vendor, scope of work and whether the contract was awarded by a competitive process.

In 2022, Hochul signed legislation restoring the comptroller office's contract oversight powers, which had been stripped by her predecessor, Andrew Cuomo, several years earlier.

The changes restored the comptroller's power to review state contracts involving the State University of New York, the City University of New York, and the Office of General Services before they are signed, known as "pre-audit" authority.

However, the coalition pointed out that the year’s state budget included dozens of exemptions to contract disclosure rules, amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars in spending authority. They said this allowed state agencies and authorities to "spend and contract significant sums of public money without oversight or best-value procurement rules, allowing potentially wasteful or corrupt spending."

"Unfortunately, too much spending still is exempt from the Comptroller’s prior approval," the groups wrote to Hochul. "More concerning, many contracts exempt from Office of the State Comptroller oversight are also exempt from competitive procurement rules."

State Comptroller Tom DiNapoli has been critical of laws shielding the state government from disclosing details of contracts totaling hundreds of millions of dollars a year. He has called for the passage of a bill requiring state agencies to provide prospective bidders for state contracts with the ability to protest a contract award. The Senate approved that bill but didn't pass the Assembly before the end of the session.

DiNapoli says the contract review is "an essential and important deterrent to waste, fraud and abuse in the state’s procurement process."